


you belong among the wildflowers

by sonlali



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gardens & Gardening, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27883630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonlali/pseuds/sonlali
Summary: Dani wakes up early to join Jamie in the garden. The morning brings with it happy domesticity, emotional support, and truly awful tea.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 10
Kudos: 83
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	you belong among the wildflowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



> FictionPenned: Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta. <3
> 
> Title from "Wildflowers" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

“Bloody fucking bugs.” Jamie examines her poor mutilated chrysanthemums, the blooms riddled with holes from the insects who have decided to make a meal of her garden. 

“Everything okay out here?” Jamie turns to see Dani approaching her, a steaming mug held in each hand. She’s wearing one of Jamie’s flannel shirts over her pyjama bottoms, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. It’s barely six in the morning, there’s still creases running across her right cheek from her pillow, and oh, Jamie loves her so much. 

“What’s got you up at the crack of dawn making awful coffee again?” Jamie rises up from her crouched position in the dirt and hastily wipes her hands off on the legs of her overalls before reaching for one of the mugs. 

“It’s tea, and I’ll thank you not to insult it before you’ve even had a taste,” Dani replies primly, but Jamie can see a hint of a smile flickering in the corners of her mouth. “I think this attempt went much better.”

“Not inspiring a lot of confidence here, Poppins.” Jamie brings the mug to her lips tentatively and takes a deep breath, playing up the drama just to see Dani laugh. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

“Well? Not bad, huh?” Dani looks eager and a bit uncertain, and most of all, so very tired. Jamie knows Dani thinks she hasn’t noticed that she’s been sleeping less, having more fitful, anxious nights. Dani is fiercely independent, and Jamie is certain she’s not ready to talk about it yet. They’re going to have to talk about it soon, but for now, Jamie will accept her truly shite tea without (too much) complaint. 

She fights back a grimace as she swallows. “Three stars.”

Dani laughs and raises her arms in a cheer, a splash of tea spilling over her own mug. _Good riddance_ , Jamie thinks, but Dani looks so happy that she knows she’ll never tell her that it’s actually more like two and a half stars. She takes another sip to appease Dani before carefully setting the mug on the ground — as far from her garden as she can reach. 

Dani sips from her own mug and — bless her — genuinely seems satisfied by the putrid excuse for tea. Jamie can’t resist leaning forward to drop a quick kiss to the corner of Dani’s mouth before returning her attention to her ruined chrysanthemums. 

“So what’s wrong?” Dani asks. “You were swearing at your flowers when I walked up.”

“I wasn’t swearing at my flowers!” Jamie is aghast at the very idea. “I was swearing at the fuckin’ insects destroying my flowers.”

“Hm.” Dani hums thoughtfully and leans over Jamie’s shoulder. “Looks like only these flowers were snacked on. Everything else looks beautiful as always.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Poppins, but yeah, actually, you’re right. I’m not sure why only the mums have been attacked.” Jamie heaves a heavy sigh. At least it’s not one of their more popular sellers. The roses and tulips and orchids are much more highly requested at their shop. 

“Can I help?” Dani crouches down beside her on the ground, carefully placing her mug next to Jamie’s and smiling eagerly. 

Dani gave up trying to help in the garden pretty early in their relationship after somehow managing to kill half of Jamie’s begonias that had been thriving for years. Jamie had banished Dani from her garden, and ever since, Dani has only stopped by periodically to bring Jamie something to drink or to drop a kiss on her sweaty forehead. Frankly, Jamie isn’t eager to repeat Dani’s murderous rampage in her garden, but Jamie always finds gardening to be a soothing balm to her soul, and Dani looks like she could use that right about now.

“Yeah, alright. Um, how about you…” Jamie bites her lip and scans her garden, trying to find something hearty that can withstand a beating from her beautiful, plant-killing girlfriend. 

Dani shoves her playfully. “Come on! I’m not a monster. Your precious flowers are safe with me.” She steps on the stem of a tulip then, and Jamie tries her best not to wince. 

“Alright, alright. Why don’t you water those dahlias?” Jamie passes over the watering can and leans in to press a quick kiss to Dani’s lips.

Dani moves to the opposite side of the garden toward the dahlias, and Jamie busies herself with pruning some overgrown leaves. She can hear Dani singing quietly under her breath. She can’t quite put her finger on the song, but it sounds familiar — a bit wistful, a bit haunting — like something Flora used to sing maybe. 

Jamie pauses in her work to listen more closely, tilting her head back to squint up at the sun just beginning to peek out from behind the clouds. It’s been nearly three years since they left Bly Manor, but Dani’s personal spectre isn’t the only thing from Bly that continues to linger in their lives. Jamie doubts Dani even realizes she’s singing the mournful tune. 

They’ve been lucky; Jamie knows they have. They’ve had so many good days and a fair few not so good ones, but these bad days always hit her hard. Dani, for her part, handles each day with a truly remarkable strength and stoicism that takes Jamie’s breath away if she allows herself to think about it for too long. 

For all that she pretends to be cynical and hardened by the cruelties that life has thrown her way, Jamie often feels ill-equipped for Dani’s bad days. Falling in love has made her bloody soft, and she can’t stand to see the vacant look that sometimes glazes over Dani’s eyes, the sorrow that overtakes their little flat on those days. She wishes more than anything that she could just fucking _destroy_ anything that causes Dani pain, but she knows that her stomping around and yelling won’t help Dani. 

She knows that the nights when she sneaks into the bathroom to cry can’t help Dani either, so she keeps those to herself. Dani is always so strong, so Jamie vows to be strong too. 

Jamie straightens up, stretching out her legs that have gone stiff from kneeling. She often loses all track of time while gardening, the smell of the earth and the feel of soil between her fingers flooding her senses with a feeling of tranquility that allows her to completely disconnect, even while only a few feet back from the small street their shop is on. She picks up her mug of shite tea and finds that it’s gone completely cold — _no loss there_ — which means she has been lost in her gardening for quite some time. 

Jamie cranes her neck to search for Dani among the greenery, but her familiar blonde head is nowhere to be found. Her heartbeat kicks up a notch in her chest, and Jamie swallows heavily, a pinprick of anxiety forming at the base of her spine. 

“Dani?” Jamie calls out, but there’s no response. In fact, she can’t hear anything at all. She realizes abruptly that she’s not sure when the low, plaintive notes from Dani’s singing were no longer filling the air. Jamie raises her voice and calls for Dani again. The sound of her own voice seems to echo around her in the aching silence.

The garden is absent of any birds chirping or insects buzzing. The wind itself seems to have stopped blowing, and the hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stands from the complete and utter stillness surrounding her. She forces her feet forward in the direction of where she last saw Dani, not caring how many of her beautiful plants are crushed in her haste.

She finds Dani kneeling in a cluster of rhododendrons, one blossom crushed in her hand and a few petals tangled in her hair. It might be a beautiful image if it weren’t so horribly, tremendously _wrong_. The watering can is on the ground between her knees, and Dani is bent over the can, her gaze directed toward the water inside, but her eyes are unfocused. 

“Dani.” Jamie’s voice comes out in a choked exhale, and she immediately drops to her knees beside her. “Dani, baby, come on.”

A few locks of hair have fallen loose from the pink scrunchie’s hold and are now hanging limply across Dani’s cheeks. Jamie bats them away impatiently, tucking them behind Dani’s ears as she runs one hand carefully along her spine. 

“Come on, Poppins. I know you’re in there.”

Finally, _finally_ , Dani blinks and turns from the watering can to look at Jamie. She inhales sharply, and with that breath, a breeze flutters through the leaves, a bird lets out a cheerful call from somewhere above, and the earth comes back to life around them. Jamie watches the woman she loves come back to her from whatever hell she was lost in, and she can’t stop herself from cupping Dani’s face in her hands and kissing her deeply, trying desperately to chase out the evil with her love. 

Dani smiles weakly when their lips separate, knocking their noses together gently. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Jamie barks out a laugh born largely from overwhelming relief and partially from the sheer absurdity of Dani trying to reassure _her_ right now. 

“Oi! Knock that off right now, you. None of that now.” Jamie plucks the petals from Dani’s hair and takes her hand as they both rise gracelessly to their feet, neither willing to allow more than an inch of space between their bodies. 

Jamie hugs her fiercely, swaying their bodies back and forth and burying her nose in Dani’s hair. She feels Dani press a kiss to her temple and squeezes her even tighter, whispering into the space between them. 

“We’ve got to talk about it, y’know? We can’t keep— I mean—”

“I know, I know.” Dani nods, and the hot tears splashing against Jamie’s neck feel like fire pokers seering her flesh. 

Jamie tries to pull back to see her face, but Dani presses their bodies closer and cups a hand to the back of Jamie’s neck to keep her still. 

“Dani, you have to talk to me. Let me know when it’s getting bad.”

“I just…” She sniffles and clears her throat. “I never want you to think I’m unhappy with our lives. Because that’s not true. I am _so_ happy. I’m so happy being with you and living here and running our little shop and—”

Jamie can no longer stand to not be looking into Dani’s eyes and pulls away, taking Dani’s face in her hands and swiping her thumbs over the tear tracks streaking down Dani’s cheeks. Her thumb leaves a smear of soil in place of the tears, but Jamie ignores that for the moment, staring intently into Dani’s eyes. 

“Poppins, I _know_ you’re happy. I know none of this has anything to do with our life together. It’s outside of our control, but we can’t keep pretending it doesn’t exist any longer. We tried to ignore the big, bad wolf, but he’s here to blow down our houses anyway. So we need to strengthen our foundation, eh? If you feel her creeping in, you let me know. If you aren’t sleeping—”

“I tell you, just like you tell me?” Dani quirks an eyebrow, and Jamie really should have known better than to think she had gotten anything past her. 

“Okay, you’re right. We both need to do better, yeah? But you need to know that I am right here beside you every step of the way, and we’ll take each day — the good ones and the bad ones — and we’ll face them together.”

“Together.” Dani repeats. 

“Alright then. Enough of all that.” Jamie licks the pad of one finger and wipes away the smudge of dirt she left under Dani’s left eye, ignoring the way Dani wrinkles her nose in feigned disgust. “Now you’ve gone and destroyed all my rhododendrons, but that’s alright. I didn’t really like ‘em much anyway. So let’s plant something else instead. How about some gladioli?”

They work together in peaceful silence, trading smiles and kisses as the sun moves overhead, warming the backs of their necks and bringing a pretty pink flush to Dani’s cheeks. Eventually, Dani grows bored of gardening and tries to convince Jamie to watch two earthworms she found race to a finish line she marked in the soil. 

“Worm number one is taking the lead, Jamie! This is getting intense. You don’t want to miss this!” Dani prods at the ticklish spot beneath her ribs until Jamie finally pulls herself away from her work, trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably. 

Jamie plucks the worm closest to her up and drops it over the finish line. “Hey, look at that, my worm won.” 

Dani’s jaw drops and she lets out an exaggerated gasp. “Interference!”

“Come on, Poppins. Let’s wash up and make breakfast. How about pancakes?”

They walk hand in hand back inside, where Jamie will show off flipping the pancakes through the air and Dani will laugh as she scrambles the eggs. Jamie will wash the dishes that Dani will then dry. Dani will go downstairs to open their shop, while Jamie will return to her garden until lunch time when Dani will return with sandwiches and kisses and stories from all the morning’s customers. It will be just another ordinary day in the life that they both so deeply cherish. 

“Hey.” Jamie knocks her hip against Dani’s as they stand side by side washing their hands at the sink before breakfast. 

“Hey yourself.” Dani flicks water from her fingers at Jamie’s face. 

“Thanks for the tea this morning.”

“Well, you know me — always such a flirt.” Dani smiles and winks. “Now, let’s get moving! We’ve got a proper borin’ day ahead of us.”


End file.
